![\"STATUARY](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/148\/2015\/05\/National_Statuary_Hall_Collection.jpg\")
<\/a>By user:Southgeist [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>One of the most popular tourist destinations in Washington, D.C. is National Statuary Hall.<\/strong> Also known as the Old Hall of the House, it\u2019s a semicircular gallery immediately south of the Capitol Rotunda. For nearly fifty years\u2014from 1807 through 1857\u2014Statuary Hall served as the meeting place for the House of Representatives. The Hall now houses many of the 100 statues of great Americans (two from each state) which together comprise the National Statuary Hall Collection.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
It\u2019s an extraordinary honor<\/strong> for the men and women depicted here to have been chosen by their home state as one of the two most valued people in their state\u2019s history. Many also played a significant role in America\u2019s history and growth, from its founding to the present day. The honorees include statesmen, politicians, humanitarians, judges, government administrators, pioneers and missionaries. They are, in a sense, emblematic of the values that each state has held dear. \u201cThis is what we stand for. This is what and whom we\u2019re most proud of.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It is not surprising, then, that statues of thirteen Catholics<\/strong> have become part of the Collection. Here are their stories.<\/span><\/p>\n 1. \u00a0Father Eusebius Kino, S.J.<\/strong> represents the state of Arizona in Statuary Hall. The Jesuit missionary is revered in the American Southwest as the \u201cfounder\u201d of Christianity in that region. An accomplished cartographer and explorer, Father Kino made more than fifty missionary journeys on horseback. He proved in his diaries, maps and charts that Baja was a peninsula. He helped the local tribes by teaching them agricultural and irrigation techniques. Fr. Kino\u2019s cause for canonization was opened in 2006, and he was then given the title Servant of God.<\/span><\/p>\n 2.<\/strong> \u00a0California chose Blessed Jun\u00edpero Serra<\/strong> to represent the state in Statuary Hall. In the 18th century, Blessed Jun\u00edpero was an esteemed professor of philosophy at the University of Palma, in Spain, but he longed to serve God as a missionary. For more than twenty years, he labored as a Franciscan missionary on the California coast, personally founding eight of California\u2019s missions. He was devoted to the Native Americans, and he baptized 6,000 of them. He was declared Venerable in 1985, and was beatified by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1988. At his beatification, John Paul II said that he \u201csowed the seeds of Christian faith amid the mountainous changes wrought by the arrival of European scholars in the New World. \u2026 In fulfilling this ministry, Father Serra showed himself to be a true son of St. Francis.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 3. \u00a0Fr. Damien de Veuster<\/strong>, known as the \u201chero of Molokai,\u201d was selected by Hawaii to represent our newest state. Serving as a priest on the big island of Hawaii, he saw many of his parishioners exiled to the island of Molokai when they contracted Hansen\u2019s disease (leprosy). Deprived of their families and hope, they were left in desperate circumstances. Fr. Damien volunteered to go and minister to the spiritual and temporal needs of the 600 homeless, abandoned men sent to Molokai, knowing that he, too, would never be allowed to leave the island. He cared for each victim of the disease, built their coffins, and saw to their burial in the area called the Garden of the Dead. Father Damien built churches, orphanages, homes and medical clinics. In time, he contracted leprosy, but continued his work until his death in 1885. St. Damien was canonized in October 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n 4. \u00a0General James Shields<\/strong> was a Union general in the Civil War. During his career, he also served as a U.S. Senator and as a member of the Illinois Supreme Court. He once challenged Abraham Lincoln to a duel, after Lincoln made some unflattering comments about him. The two reconciled, however, and became lifelong friends. General Shields represents the state of Illinois in Statuary Hall. <\/span><\/p>\n 5. \u00a0Edward Douglass White<\/strong> was Chief Justice of the United States from 1910 to 1921 and served as an associate justice for the six preceding years. During his career on the court, White wrote several hundred opinions. In 1911, he penned a \u201crule of reason\u201d which distinguished between legal and illegal business combinations, in the cases of <\/span><\/span><\/span>Standard Oil <\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>and <\/span><\/span><\/span>American Tobacco Company<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>. In 1916, White wrote the decision upholding the constitutionality of the eight-hour workday for railroad workers. The University of Notre Dame awarded him the Laetare Medal in recognition of his outstanding service to the Roman Catholic Church and to society. White\u2019s statue represents the state of Louisiana.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 6.<\/strong> \u00a0Maryland is well-represented by a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll<\/strong> of Carrollton, who lived from 1737 to 1834. He came from a prominent family: his grandfather was attorney general Lord Baltimore of Maryland, and a cousin was Archbishop John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States. Educated in Europe, Carroll became prominent in politics, serving as a Congressman and as a U.S. Senator. He laid the cornerstone for the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad on June 4, 1828, and died later that year\u2014the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 7. \u00a0Patrick A. McCarran<\/strong>, the son of Irish immigrants, served as a U.S. Senator from Nevada. In the early years of the 20th century, while McCarran was supporting his family by farming and raising sheep, he was elected to the Nevada Legislature. He practiced law, was elected associate justice and then chief justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada, and also served on the Nevada Board of Pardons and the State Board of Parole Commissioners. During his tenure as a U.S. Senator, he was Chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia and the Committee on the Judiciary, as well as being co-chairman of the Joint Commission on Foreign Economic Cooperation. His statue in Statuary Hall represents the state of Nevada.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 8. \u00a0Dennis Chavez<\/strong> was chosen by the state of New Mexico to be memorialized in Statuary Hall. Chavez served as U.S. Representative from 1930-36, and as U.S. Senator from 1936 to 1960. He died in 1962. In 1976, his memory was honored in Nevada when the federal building in Albuquerque was renamed the Senator Dennis Chavez Federal Center.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 9. \u00a0John Burke<\/strong> began his legal career in Iowa and Minnesota before moving to the Dakota Territory. After North Dakota was admitted to the union, Burke served in the state House of Representatives and Senate, then served three terms as the tenth governor of North Dakota. Burke supported the candidacy of Woodrow Wilson at the 1912 Democratic National Convention; and William Jennings Bryan had supported Burke for vice president, but he declined to accept that position. After Wilson\u2019s election to the presidency, he named Burke to the position of U.S. Treasurer. Burke tried unsuccessfully to win election to the U.S. Senate in 1916. \u00a0He represents the state of North Dakota. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 10. \u00a0Dr. John McLoughlin<\/strong> has been called the \u201cFather of Oregon.\u201d He was baptized Catholic, but raised Anglican, returning to the Catholic faith as an adult. He worked first as a physician, then as agent for the Hudson Bay Company. His general store was the last stop on the Oregon Trail. He reverted to the Catholic faith in 1842 and only four years later, was named a Knight of St. Gregory for his personal service to the Holy See and the Catholic Church. Dr. McLoughlin welcomed settlers\u2014feeding and clothing them, caring for their sick, and giving them needed implements for farming. He was forced to resign from his position with the Hudson Bay Company over his policy of extending credit to pioneers arriving to establish new farms. A bronze statue of McLoughlin was donated to Statuary Hall by the state of Oregon in 1953.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 11. \u00a0Mother Mary Joseph Pariseau<\/strong> was a pioneer, missionary and humanitarian. She represents the state of Washington in Statuary Hall. Originally serving in Canada, Mother Mary Joseph was the first superior of the Sisters of Charity of Providence in the Northwestern United States. She traveled by horseback and stagecoach to western mining towns, where she sought financial support for her order\u2019s projects throughout the Northwest: hospitals, schools, and orphanages. She was skilled as a carpenter, woodworker and architect; and, in the 1870s, she designed and oversaw construction of St. Joseph Hospital in Vancouver, St. Vincent Hospital in Portland and Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 12. \u00a0John Edward Kenna<\/strong> is one of West Virginia\u2019s honorees in Statuary Hall. He was severely injured while serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. McKenna served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, then as U.S. Senator\u2014a post to which he was reelected several times. As a Senator, he was concerned about tariff reform and the regulation of railroads. He was an active Catholic, and was responsible for the design of Charlestown\u2019s historic St. Joseph Church.<\/span><\/p>\n 13. \u00a0 Rev. Jacques Marquette, S.J.,<\/strong> French Jesuit missionary and explorer, discovered the Mississippi River. With French-Canadian fur trader Louis Joliet, Pere Marquette led an expedition that included five men and two canoes to find the mouth of the Mississippi River. Marquette\u2019s goal was to spread the word of God among the people he encountered on the way. He began his missionary work in 1666 among the Native Americans in Canada, established missions in present-day Michigan, then traveled westward to present-day Wisconsin. There the group ascended the Fox River to a portage that crossed to the Wisconsin River near Prairie du Chien. He mastered six Native American languages in order to spread the Catholic faith in the region. Wisconsin chose Marquette to represent the state in Statuary Hall.<\/span><\/p>\n THE CALIFORNIA CONTROVERSY\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n There is a controversy this year<\/strong> surrounding one of the two statues representing the State of California:<\/p>\n Some\u00a0Native American groups now\u00a0dispute\u00a0Fr. Junipero Serra\u2019s legacy as the founder of the California\u00a0Missions. His efforts, his critics claim, were<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026part of an imperial conquest that beat and enslaved Native Americans, raped their women, and destroyed their culture by forcing them to abandon their traditional language, diet, dress and other customs and rites.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n